The present disclosure relates to a sheet loading unit provided with a sheet loading face on which sheets to be fed to an image forming unit of an image forming apparatus or sheets to be fed to an image reading unit of an image reading apparatus are loaded. Further, the present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus and an image reading apparatus, provided with the sheet loading unit.
The image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer and a facsimile includes an apparatus main body containing an image forming unit configured to form an image on a sheet such as a paper. The image forming apparatus often includes a sheet supply cassette provided inside its apparatus main body or a sheet supply tray provided outside or inside the apparatus main body (referred to as “manual feeding tray”).
The manual feeding tray includes a sheet loading portion, cursor members, and a guide groove. The sheet loading portion has a sheet loading face on which sheets to be fed to the image forming unit are loaded. The cursor members are a pair of cursor members movable in a width direction of a sheet orthogonal to a sheet feeding direction on the sheet loading face to restrict a position of the sheet in the width direction. The guide groove is provided in the sheet loading face and extends in the width direction of the sheet to guide the cursor member to move in the width direction. The cursor member includes a cursor base, a cursor rising portion and a connecting portion. The cursor base has a cursor plane extending substantially in parallel to the sheet loading face with a difference of step with respect to the sheet loading face. The cursor rising portion rises relative to the cursor plane and is in contact with or in proximity to an edge of the sheet in a width direction thereof to restrict a position of the sheet in the width direction. The connecting portion is connected to the cursor base at a portion in the feeding direction of the inside edge in the width direction of the cursor base and extends from the sheet loading face side to a reverse side via the guide groove.
In the manual feeding tray having the above-described structure, a user places a sheet on the sheet loading face, moves the cursor members inward in the width direction of the sheet, arranges an end portion in the width direction of the sheet on the cursor plane of the cursor base and further brings the cursor rising portion into contact with or proximity to the end portion in the width direction of the sheet. Consequently, a position in the width direction of the sheet can be restricted.
However, in the aforementioned manual feeding tray, a gap (difference in step) may be formed easily between the sheet loading face and the cursor base. Then, when the cursor members are moved inward in the width direction of the sheet, an end portion in the width direction of the sheet sometimes may enter the gap between the sheet loading face and the cursor base. In this case, the end portion in the width direction of the sheet is not placed on the cursor plane of the cursor base. As a consequence, it comes that no position in the width direction of the sheet is restricted by the cursor rising portion. This problem also may occur in a sheet loading unit other than the manual feeding tray, for example, a sheet feeding cassette or an original document tray in an original document feeding unit.